The competition heats up: More evidence that Brownsville, Texas, has won the competition to become the location of SpaceX’s private commercial spaceport.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon, any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Google Lunar X-Prize has chosen 5 finalists of the 18 teams remaining in the private competition to land a rover on the Moon by 2015.
Astrobotic, Moon Express and Team Indus are finalists for prizes of $1 million per team for achievement in hardware and software systems to enable a soft landing on the Moon. Astrobotic, Moon Express, Hakuto and Part-Time Scientists are finalists for prizes of $500,000 per team related to the mobility systems that allow a team’s lunar craft to travel 500 meters across the lunar surface after landing. Astrobotic, Moon Express, Part-Time Scientists and Team Indus are finalists for prizes of $250,000 per team for technology designed to produce high-quality images and video on the Moon.
The first team to land before the end of 2015 will win $20 million.
Posted from Tucson International Airport.
Posting for the rest of February will be spotty. I am heading to New York to give a lecture the Long Island section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics on Thursday night, then on to Israel for 10 days to visit family.
For an idea of what it was like to visit Israel last February, check out my earlier posts below, listed in chronological order. In each case, I think you will get a more accurate portrayal of the reality on the ground, in contrast to the political antisemitism of today’s modern intellectual culture.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Europe approves its own more advanced version of Kepler to launch in 2024 and hunt for exoplanets across half the sky.
During its six year long planned mission, PLATO will observe one million stars, leading to the likely discovery and characterisation of thousands of new planets circling other stars. PLATO will scan and observe about half the sky, including the brightest and nearest stars.
PLATO consists of an array of 34 individual telescopes mounted on an observing platform in the space probe. The satellite will be positioned at one of the so-called Lagrangian Points , where the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Earth cancel each other out so the satellite will stay at a fixed position in space. Each of the 34 telescopes has an aperture of 12 centimeters. The individual telescopes can be combined in many different modes and bundled together, leading to unprecedented capabilities to simultaneously observe both bright and dim objects. PLATO will be equipped with the largest camera-system sensor ever flown in space, comprising 136 charge-coupled devices (CCDs) that have a combined area of 0.9 square metres.
What I like about this is that this project is essentially putting another optical telescope in space. The more of these we have the more discoveries we will make, as even a tiny optical telescope in the vacuum of space is more productive than a giant ground-based telescope looking through the foggy atmosphere of Earth.
Finding out what’s in it: “If I do not receive my medication, I will die.”
And then there’s this Obamacare story from California (HT commenter Cotour): Man’s back surgery on hold because he can’t find a doctor in California who will take his Obamacare insurance.
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke
I don’t understand why members of Congress, the White House and the media become cooperators in videos that sort of show that deep down they all see themselves as . . . actors. And good ones! In a phony drama. Meant I suppose to fool the rubes. It’s all supposed to be amusing, supposed to show you’re an insider who sees right through this town. But I’m not sure it shows that.
We’re at a funny point in our political culture. To have judgment is to be an elitist. To have dignity is to be yesterday. To have standards is to be a hypocrite—you won’t always meet standards even when they’re your own, so why have them?
I have always tried to have judgment, dignity, and standards, which I guess explains why I have had so little success compared to today’s politicians and modern intellectuals.
Meanwhile, take a close look at who participated in the video Noonan describes above. It will tell you who we should not trust in the impending war over American freedom.
Finding out what’s in it: A fourth hospital in two years is shutting down in Georgia because of payment cuts imposed by Obamacare.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: University of South Carolina administrators refuse to teach the Constitution, as required by state stature, because they find it “inconvenient.”
State statutes maintain that all students at a South Carolina public school must spend a certain amount of time studying the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Failure to abide by the statute is grounds for the removal of the head of the public institution–in this case, President Pastides. “Willful neglect or failure on the part of any public school superintendent, principal or teacher or the president, teacher or other officer of any high school, normal school, university or college to observe and carry out the requirements [of the statute] shall be sufficient cause for the dismissal or removal of such person from his position,” according to South Carolina law.
The USC administrators say the statute is inconvenient to enforce, however, since it would disrupt the university’s current course requirements.
It might inconvenient, and the law itself might be foolish, but it isn’t up the administrators to decide this. They should be fired.
Communism fails again, and the Western intellectual elite puts blinders on so they don’t have to see it.
Communism and top-down state control of human activity has always failed in the past, continues to fail in the present, and will always fail in the future — no matter how good or sincere the intentions might be. If you want to make life better for people, give them freedom and then try to persuade them to do the right thing. Applying force simply does not work.
The Russian head of the Baikonur spaceport has resigned.
It appears that this is part of the continuing shake-up in Russia’s space operations as a result of its recent launch failures.
The competition heats up: Kate Upton and Sports Illustrated have completed a swimsuit photo shoot on the vomit comet.
More here, with pictures.
The uncertainty of science: NOAA’s official prediction for this winter was as bad as monkeys working on typewriters.
“Not one of our better forecasts,” admits Mike Halpert, the Climate Prediction Center’s acting director. The center grades itself on what it calls the Heidke skill score, which ranges from 100 (perfection) to -50 (monkeys throwing darts would have done better). October’s forecast for the three-month period of November through January came in at -22. Truth be told, the September prediction for October-December was slightly worse, at -23. The main cause in both cases was the same: Underestimating the mammoth December cold wave, which brought snow to Dallas and chilled partiers in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
But don’t worry. These guys know exactly what’s going to happen to the climate in a hundred years.
Chicken Little report: In October of last year three relatively large near Earth asteroids were discovered unexpectedly.
Read the report, which is the second notice at the link. I missed it at the time. Each of these new discoveries was interesting and surprising. Key quote: “The delayed discovery of 2013 US10 is a bit harder to explain, since current population models suggest that almost all near-Earth asteroids of this size and orbit should have already been found.” Apparently not.
In related news, a several hundred foot wide asteroid zipped past the Earth this evening.
A Boston hospital kidnaps a family’s daughter and then slaps a gag order on them to try to prevent them from talking about it.
The Boston hospital, to which the girl was transferred on the advice of her original doctors in Connecticut, disagreed with the treatment and then forced their decisions on the family to the point of denying them access to their daughter. The father is now going public because he fears if she doesn’t get the right treatment “she is going to die.”
Though the story makes no mention of it, we must remember that Massachusetts is the land of Romneycare, where the government has stepped in to run the medical world. Somehow, I strongly suspect that fact plays a part in this story, if only as a cultural factor.
Police state: Police shoot and kill an 80-year-old man in his own bed.
They were looking for drugs, which they did not find. They also apparently lied in their police report about what happened.
The competition heats up: Russia’s Proton rocket successfully put a commercial Turkish communications satellite into orbit on Saturday.
The competition heats up: India unveils its first test manned capsule.
There was an earlier story about this that was very vague. This one is only somewhat more informative (the test flight could happen as early as May), but it also includes a picture of the capsule, which is essentially only the structural hull.
Opportunity heads uphill after engineers finally pinpoint the origin of the rock that appeared out of nowhere.
They have now confirmed that the rock was kicked off a larger piece when Opportunity traveled over it.
The real tea party platform: “We are not purists. We just want people who fundamentally represent our values.”
Indeed, despite the allegations that we seek purity within the party, it is clear that what we want is a bold party of contrast – whether in the majority or minority. We want a party that will offer a bold stance on immigration and the debt ceiling, for example, and fight for it with equal and opposing force. We want loyal conservatives that share and fight for our conservative values the same way elected liberals fight for the Democrat party platform. Instead we are given a pale pastel version of Republicans who placate conservatives during election years, and then enact the liberal Democrat talking points through clandestine political efforts.
We know who is with us and who is with the political class. Everybody takes bad votes once and a while. Even Ted Cruz recently voted for a bad flood insurance bill. None of us are demanding purity from him because we know that on almost every issue he is not just a vote but a courageous and effective voice for the millions of us who are disenfranchised by the ruling class oligarchy. He fights every day in Washington for us.
The article also looks in detail at the recent debt ceiling vote and notes how it clearly revealed the loyalties of the Republican leadership. As the author states, “The leaders in the House and Senate, along with their boot lickers, are fundamentally against us. Many of us have known and observed this privately for years, but the debt ceiling vote – both in the House and Senate – brought their devious subterfuge out in the open.”
Read it all. Its goal is not to make you give up, but to recognize the difference between the Republicans who matter and the Republicans who are quislings.
More details here about the growing leadership fight in the Republican Party. Based on what I read, the present leadership, especially in the House, is on very thin ice.
The competition heats up: The structural assembly of India’s manned crew module was delivered to its space agency this week.
The article is not very informative, but it appears that this is the basic hull and structure of a manned test module that will be outfitted and then flown on a test flight of India’s GSLV rocket.
Orbital Sciences’ balance sheets booming as a result of commercial space.
“Orbital’s fourth quarter financial results reflected solid growth in revenues, earnings per share and free cash flow, and capped a very successful year in 2013,” noted Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. This highly successful report reflects the successes Orbital have enjoyed during the last year. The most publicly recognized successes have involved the opening launches of their new Antares launch vehicle, two of which lofted the first Cygnus spacecraft on their missions to the ISS.
I’m so glad: The FAA has given its permission for Blue Origin to expand its operations in Texas.
“After reviewing and analyzing currently available data and information on existing conditions and the potential impacts of the Proposed Action, the FAA has determined that issuing experimental permits and/or launch licenses to Blue Origin for operation of suborbital RLVs at the West Texas launch site would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment,” the agency said in document posted on its website.
Two takeaways: First, Blue Origin is moving forward with the testing of more sophisticated suborbital and maybe orbital spacecraft. That is great news. Second, it really is annoying that they need the government’s approval to do this, especially since the FAA knows far less about it then they do.
For the first time in 20 years, the global total spent on government space programs declined in 2013.
According to Euroconsult’s newly released research report, Profiles of Government Space Programs, global budgets for space programs dropped to $72.1 billion in 2013 following peak spending at $72.9 billion in 2012. This is the first time since 1995 that public space programs worldwide have entered a downward trend, a direct result of the cyclical nature of countries’ investment in space-based infrastructures combined with governments’ belt-tightening efforts during tough economic times.
This is not bad news. It just reflects the shift from public to private in the space industry in the U.S. and elsewhere, which is also reducing the cost for doing exactly the same thing. Thus, spending might drop, but more is being done.
Torches, masks, and violent threats: The KKK used it (an almost entirely Democratic Party organization), and now environmentalists are running with it.
For no reason in particular: Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia House of Burgess, March 23, 1775.
After reading it I have no doubt you will agree that this man is a right-wing extremist of the worst sort. Why, for instance, hasn’t the IRS come after him, along with OSHA, the EPA, and numerous other of our noble federal agencies that were created to protect us?
